The Halloween candy is just about gone, Starbucks is now using their red cups, and there are Black Friday sales ads in the paper.  It’s official.  The holiday season is here.  If this thought brings more anxiety than excitement or more dread than joy, you may want to consider a change in how you approach the season.  While, personally, there are a lot of traditions I enjoy, I also know how keeping up some traditions can be burdensome.  So in today’s blog post, I am officially giving you permission to review your holiday traditions and see if you can change things up to relieve the pit in your stomach when you think about decking your halls.

Traditions imply continuity.  They are a way of remembering the past and honoring people we love, like Great Aunt Sue’s stuffing or all gathering at Grandma’s house.  The anticipation of these events and the seasonal predictable nature of them make them both special and comfortable.  But not always for everyone.  So many women I know would love to have a break from hosting Christmas, but they tell me, “My kids would be so upset.”  And these are actually adult children!  Sure, they love mom taking care of it all, but what about Mom?  And what about the son who has abstained from alcohol or lowered his blood sugar, being told, “Oh, you can have just one glass,” or “Just a small piece of my pie, I made it for you!  You always have my pie.”

Holiday season is already full of stress: the traffic, noise, and travel.  Then there is the eating and pressure to spend money for the people you love.  And for women in particular, there are the hosting obligations with the planning, shopping, cooking, and endless cleaning.  It’s easy to get lost in the obligations and end up feeling resentful rather than blessed.  Traditions have a way of multiplying up over the years, adding layers that might benefit from some pruning.

If the holidays have become overwhelming to you, try choosing just a few activities that reap the biggest benefit for the values most important to you at that time of year.  What are the traditions you enjoy, and what are the traditions you would secretly love to do without?  Changing traditions is going to involve being assertive.  You are going against what is expected and to others it may feel like a rejection.  But see if you can be both honest and creative with the people you love.  After all, the point is celebration.  What is it about the tradition that people enjoy?  Are there ways to preserve the intention while lessening the burden?  Can we draw names from a hat instead of buying gifts for everyone?  Can we alter the menu to include some healthier dish choices?  Or can we try rotating the hosting duties or party locations?  Rather than letting your holiday season come and go like a runaway train, slow it down by focusing your energy on what is most meaningful and healthy.

And don’t be afraid to try something completely new if you need to.  After a painful loss, some people prefer to go away for the holiday, avoiding the weather and constant reminders of what no longer is.  You can always return to your old traditions when you’re ready.  Or you may be surprised; sometimes the best holidays involve an unusual twist.  I remember one of my favorite years involved cooking exclusively on a grill and sitting on plastic chairs by candlelight because the electricity at our new home wasn’t hooked up yet and we had just moved in.  Laughter filled the empty space and somehow, nobody starved!

Welcome to the Monday morning after “falling back.”  Yes, you get the extra hour of sleep, but for many people the early darkness coincides with a depressing feeling when you leave work or pick up the kids from sports practice in the dark.  As seasons shift, so does the amount of sunlight, and for people highly sensitive to this change it can predispose you to depression.  The good news is, even though you may not be able to winter in Ecuador, there are things you can do to help support yourself through this dark time of year.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (appropriately known as SAD) is a subtype of Major Depression that comes and goes based on the seasons.  Symptoms of winter-onset SAD include irritability, low energy, problems getting along with people, hypersensitivity to rejection, “heavy” feeling in the arms and legs, oversleeping, and appetite changes, especially cravings for food high in carbohydrates (more pumpkin pie, anyone?).  (Interestingly, there is also a summer-onset SAD whose symptoms include depression, trouble sleeping, weight loss, poor appetite, and agitation.)  It’s normal to have some days that you feel down, but if you feel down for days at a time or can’t get motivated to do the things you usually enjoy, you may want to incorporate some strategies to help survive the winter blues.  For most people these symptoms are relatively mild, but for some they can be more severe.

The specific causes of SAD are unknown, but there are several factors that come into play.  The decrease in sunlight may disrupt your body’s internal clock (circadian rhythm).  Also, the level of the neurotransmitter serotonin (a brain chemical that affects mood) drops in response to reduced sunlight and melatonin levels (which plays a role in sleep patterns and mood) are disrupted.  There are also risk factors that may make you more likely to experience the winter blues.  SAD is diagnosed more in women, in young people, and those with a blood relative who has been diagnosed with any form of depression. Also, SAD is more common in people who live either far north or south of the equator.

Treatment for winter depression may include light therapy, medication, and psychotherapy.  Light therapy, often called phototherapy, involves sitting 30 to 60 minutes a day in front of a special light therapy box that mimics natural outdoor light (full spectrum UV light). (For best results, pair it with a pina colada).  Some people with SAD respond well to antidepressants, such as Welbutrin, if started before symptoms begin each year.  Psychotherapy can help with stress management and offer support and strategies for coping.

In addition to the treatment options, there are home remedies that can help, especially for people with milder cases.  Getting outside, especially within two hours of waking up, can be helpful.  Try drinking your coffee on the porch or even walking around the block when you get your newspaper.  Open blinds, trim tree branches that block sunlight, and sit near the window while at home.  Exercise helps relieve stress and increases serotonin levels.  When you’re feeling down it is easy to isolate, so make sure you make the effort to connect with people.

My friend with SAD has her favorite treatment, a  yearly trip to a warm, sunny place.  For some of us, however, this is not a reliable option, so I’ll share with you my favorite tip for beating the winter blues.  Make a warm beverage, sit by the fire, and cuddle with someone you love.  Did you know that new research shows that hugs also raise serotonin levels?

Some of the most challenging changes we make involve saying good-bye to relationships.  If you are going through a break up or a divorce, or leaving a job, or moving somewhere new, it involves saying good bye to a person or people or who have been significant to you.  Endings are hard and you’re usually filled with complex emotions at the time they happen.  But often the way we end a relationship colors the way we feel about that person for a very long time, as well as how the person thinks about us.  Putting energy into creating a thoughtful  ending can help you move forward and sustain positive feelings about yourself and your relationships well into the future.

Endings involve ambivalent feelings.  We once were dedicated to someone or something, and now we have to let go.  If we dwell on all the great things we will be losing, we would be stuck and never move on.  But sometimes we go to an extreme.  In order to make the separation, we get angry, seeing only the bad experiences in order to motivate us to let go.  Ever hear someone talk about their “Ex” with such disdain, it’s hard to imagine they were ever in love?  It’s easy to jump on the negativity bandwagon.  It frees you up from taking a deeper look at a complex dynamic and owning your part of what can feel like a failure.  Just as teenagers often need to judge their parents harshly in order to separate, we all have a tendency to become a bit superior as a defense against the pain of loss.

But be careful.  Leaving a job or a relationship in such a negative state can have consequences for you.  Research shows we tend to remember the things that happen most recently (aptly called the recency effect”).  So even if you have loved your job and the people you worked with for a long time, if things end badly, that is what you and your co-workers will remember.  Years of cooperation and mutual respect can be washed away with a bad taste of “they never appreciated me,” or “she always thought she was better than us” types of feelings that linger.

Especially when we feel a lack of control in a situation, it is tempting to end things with a bang.  But relationships don’t truly ever end.  Even if we never encounter the person again, the relationship lives on in our mind.  If we are careful and open to the process of ending, we can preserve good memories and people who are dear to us.  Rather than forming a reserve of bitterness we operate from, it helps to think of creating a treasure chest, where we store the valued aspects of our relationships, both good and challenging.  These relationships are part of our history and our identity.  They represent who we were and how we have grown.  Rather than burning bridges, by working through the painful emotions of endings, we can hold onto the love that was once created.

You are trying to make a change that feels easy and obvious, yet you just can’t do it.  You become frustrated and blame yourself for being weak or lazy.  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I frequently hear, “What is wrong with me?”  It’s easy to get caught up in diagnosing yourself with all kinds of problems, everything from just not being smart enough to having a multi-syllabic mental health disorder.

When feeling stuck in a pattern it’s often helpful to take a step back.  A broader perspective may reveal a hidden answer to your dilemma.  When working with people in therapy I usually assume that people have very good reasons for why they do what they do, but these reasons may not be obvious to the circumstances at hand.  Frequently these reasons stem from the past and represent a pattern of coping that was necessary and helpful at one time that our unconscious minds are reluctant to let go of.

We learn early on what is necessary for survival.  While most of us, fortunately, were never in real danger, children are perceptive to what is needed to fit into the environment in which they are being raised and to preserve their esteem or “emotional survival.”  They learn to adapt to their environment and develop ways of coping with stressors without ever realizing what they are doing.  For example, a young woman I worked with had been avoiding talking to her boss about an idea she had that she thought would help her company.  She hated speaking up in meetings, even though her co-workers were kind, and despite promising herself before each staff meeting that she was going to do it, she just “couldn’t.”  She was sure she had a social phobia and was doomed to forever be relegated to secondary roles.  In shifting her focus from how her behavior was problematic, to how it might have served her, at least at one time, her behavior began to make sense.  She was the sixth child of her busy family.  Her parents and siblings always had advice for her and being younger, whenever she gave an opinion, she was lectured by someone about how she didn’t really understand or how her opinion was wrong.  She learned early on that expressing her opinion was not “safe.”

“But that was so long ago,” people say.  That may be true, but our early experiences are foundations for our development and have years of reinforcement behind them.  The good news is that once you can acknowledge how your behavior served you, you can accept it as a pattern that was learned and had a positive role for you.  Once you do this, you can separate the child you were, who had few resources or choices, from the adult you are now.  The adult woman can take care of the little girl inside of her who was criticized so that she can handle the risk of presenting her idea to her boss.

When making a change, it’s normal to have anxiety and worry about all the “what ifs…”  Anxiety, in small proportions, can actually help you perform well in a new situation by giving you a bit of extra energy and the motivation to prepare.  Sometimes, however, anxiety can run amok.  You can paralyze yourself with the anticipation of situations that may well never happen but get in the way of your feeling good enough:  “What if I embarrass myself,” What if I’m not smart enough,” “What if she doesn’t like me,” or the most common concern, “What if I fail?”

Anxiety takes you out of the moment and is a projection of your fear into the future.  Unfortunately, it can sometimes become so powerful, the “what if” scenario you create in your mind feels like reality.  As in the blog post last week about coping with tempting “just” thoughts, when coping with anxiety, it’s important to recognize your inner “what if” voice is also just a thought.  In this way, you can distance yourself from the thought and keep it in check.  Some people find the mnemonic of “STOP” helpful:

Stop what you are doing and label your anxiety

Take a few deep breaths

Observe what is going on in your mind and body

Pull back perspective as an outside compassionate observer using your more rational mind

The technique of STOP is a way to break the cycle of anxiety as it builds.  “What if” statements become perceived threats and trigger your fight/flight reaction –heart racing, muscles tensing, sweating, and stomach aches.  By actively using your mind to take control of your thoughts, you can slow down your central nervous system responding and stay in the present.

Another similar technique came to me one day when I was driving, not only my car, but myself crazy.  I was worrying about a class I was asked to teach.  It was a new class for me, and while I was excited to expand my knowledge and experience, I began to obsess about it.  “What if the material is boring to people,” or “what If they ask me something I don’t know.”  The worries began to expand from the class to my job, thinking that if I didn’t teach the class well, they wouldn’t want me to teach other classes, and then it expanded to other areas of my life, and how if I messed up, everything would fall apart.  Finally, in my frenzy of “What if” thinking, I suddenly had the insight about what I was doing to myself.  I heard the echoes of all the “what ifs” and realized how I was working myself up for the benefit of my anxiety, not myself.  Then, literally I said aloud, “What if, instead of everything being doomed, what if everything is okay?”  I sat there with that thought in mind:  “What if…everything is okay?”  It was a new thought for me.  It made me laugh.  It was actually amusing to realize how novel an idea it was for me to acknowledge the fact that most of the time, everything was okay.

It’s important not to think of anxiety as your enemy, however.   It’s actually a sign of your caring and your sense of responsibility and desire to be successful.  Those are all wonderful things that give your life passion and meaning.  It’s when anxiety takes over that we need to take care.  Whatever technique you find helpful, the point is to help you manage your anxiety and use its energy to excite you rather than torture you.  Next time you hear a trail of “What ifs”, try to S-T-O-P, and then get going!

While doing your best to make a lifestyle change, beware of the word “just.”  It usually comes right before an impulsive act of giving in to temptation, such as “just tonight,” “just one,” or “just for now.”  It’s not that I’m advocating that you should never indulge yourself or bend your rules a little bit, it’s “just” that by making a decision to engage in the desired behavior in a more mindful way, you will help yourself both enjoy the behavior and have a greater chance of staying on track for long term change.

It’s normal to have days or evenings when you want to throw caution to the wind and break free from restrictions you’ve put on yourself.  Too often, however, it’s followed by a spell of remorse.  You wake up the next day upset and even angry at yourselves for “being weak” or “screwing up.”  After it’s too late you regret your impulsive behavior and wish you had done things differently.  That’s why it’s so important when making lasting change to watch out for “just” statements and recognize them for what they are, rationalizations.   Temptation rationalizations are a normal part of the change process, but often come at times we’re vulnerable to their pull.  That’s why it’s good to identify them when they happen and recognize them for what they are, “just” thoughts.

Temptation thoughts represent our old way of being and come most often when we’re tired, lonely, upset, or feeling less centered in some way.  They can also be a result of unintended or unexpected peer pressure, wanting to be a part of the group and do what everyone around you is doing.  An important way to deal with “just thoughts” when they happen is first to identify it.  By labeling your “just thought” as a “temptation thought,” you immediately put some distance between you and the potential behavior.  For example, you’re having a bad day and feel very lonely.  You run into your ex-boyfriend who was not a very thoughtful partner.  He shows interest in you and you are flattered.  A little voice inside your head says, “Wouldn’t it feel good to be together with him, just for tonight.”  But then you remind yourself that you have just uttered a “just statement.”  You recognize this as a way of fooling yourself into thinking that it would be fine to spend the evening with this man, forgetting the pain he caused you and the disappointment you would feel in yourself tomorrow.  Instead, you decide since you’ve had a tough day and need some company, you’d be better off calling a friend who makes you laugh or even renting a movie that inspires you.

Sometimes you will decide that you want to go ahead and have the piece of cake or skip the workout, or even smoke the cigarette or have the drink.  Change is not a straight line forward.  But by making a conscious choice, you are being more honest with yourself about your behavior.  In doing so, you give yourself a much better chance to recommit to your goal and truly keep it to the “ just one” you’ve decided on.

With the official welcoming of Fall this past week, we begin to see the signs of the change of season.  In addition to the sale of “Pumpkin-Spice” everything lately, the leaves are slowly changing color, the morning air is crisp, and darkness descends earlier each day.  Personally, I love Fall.  I love to visit pumpkin patches and eat butternut squash soup.  I enjoy watching football (yes, even when the NY Giants are terrible, again) and pulling out my boots and sweaters. Somehow, the change to Fall represents the biggest transition in seasons to me, each year reminding me of the losses and new beginnings that are inevitable with change.

Besides all the things I look forward to about Fall and the abundance of the harvest at this time of year, I can’t help but feel a bitter sweetness as life around me goes dormant.  The dying leaves turn brown and fall to the ground, dried up and crunchy as I walk along the path.  The dark evenings and cold weather bring me inside, more isolated and withdrawn from the rest of the world.  For some people, the darkness brings real changes in mood, as the lack of daylight hours affects them psychologically.  Spiritually, the coming of Fall reminds me that nothing lasts forever.  Whether I am going through a period of great joy and good fortune, or loneliness and loss, the experience will give way and something new will take its place.  Life comes and goes in cycles, and we pass through the stages of our lives in rhythms, too.

There is something very reassuring to me about these transitions.  The inevitability of the season’s change reminds me that I am but one small being living in a vast natural order that needs nothing from me in order for it to occur. We all experience the changes together, a humbling reminder of our shared existence and our limited role in the celestial happenings of the Earth’s rotations.  It is also a reminder about time, a reflection of the passing of the years and a way that I notice the shifts in myself and my family from season to season and year to year. Each Halloween I remember what my kids wore every year for their costumes, from the time they picked out their little girl fairy costumes to the sophisticated plans they now make with friends.  Each Thanksgiving I note who gathers for the celebration, and who is no longer among us.  The cycles of the seasons represent both a fresh opportunity and a letting go.

The earth renews itself through death and rebirth.  The framework of this natural process inspires me through my own times of change.  I am old enough now to remember many happy times, and many dark times.  Embracing the cyclic patterns of renewal can help us cope in the times of darkness.  We know that out of the darkness comes the light and from death comes rebirth.  After Fall will be Winter, and after Winter there will be Spring.  And by the time this happens I will be ready to pack up my sweaters and pull out the sandals, listen to basketball instead of football, turn the clock forward for brighter days anticipating nature’s first bloom.

A central theme of the Jewish New Year, which is celebrated this week, is forgiveness.  It is a time of reflection to take stock of our lives and do our best to make amends to the people we feel we need to make things right with.  It is also a time for letting go.  We consider what is holding us back and weighing us down, and do our best to release it.   To be honest, I have tended to focus on the side of relieving my guilt and trying to make up for what wrongs I feel have done, hoping to be forgiven.  In a way, however, this has been selfish, because as I have been thinking about forgiveness this year, I realize forgiving others is just as important a process in healing the wounds in relationship and for truly having an open heart.

When I began to think about being forgiving, some obvious situations came to mind as times where I had been hurt or wronged.  But then as I more carefully began to notice my feelings, I discovered how often I was putting myself in the role of a victim and carrying past resentments with me into the present.  For example, I was heading to a meeting at my daughter’s school and found myself unsettled at the thought that a particular mother would probably be there.  This was a woman that I had felt wronged by from an incident last year.  It distracted me and took away some of the good feeling I would otherwise have had.  Another day, in dealing with a family member, I found myself irritated with their asking something of me that they were not able to do for me in the past.  Rather than be able to respond to this person in the moment and feel good about it, old tapes began to play in my mind, once again reminding me of ways that this person had disappointed me that had nothing to do with the current day.  By holding a grudge, I was not only hurting myself, but creating a barrier between me and my family.

In his book, Forgive For Good, Dr. Fred Luskin explores the benefits of forgiveness.  Motivated by his own personal experience, he began to research the healing aspects of forgiveness.  What he found is that people who forgive tend to be happier and healthier, both physically and emotionally.  People often resist forgiving someone because they feel in some way it is saying that what had happened to them was ok.  What people find, however, is actually the opposite.  In order to forgive, we must first truly understand the hurt and fully acknowledge what we experienced.  Forgiving is about moving into the hurt and then moving through it, rather than rigidly holding onto it and allowing it to continue to live inside us.  Forgiveness is a way of moving out of resentment and freeing ourselves up.  It is an empowering change that releases us from victimhood and lets us live in the moment instead of the past.

Forgiveness is an internal process.  We may choose to talk about it with the person we are forgiving or choose not to.  Either way, by engaging in forgiveness, we shift the relationship we have with the person involved.  Forgiveness can also apply to yourself.  What anger are you holding onto about mistakes you made that might be punishing you with self judgments and shame?  If you think you are ready to do some letting go, join me in reading Dr. Luskin’s book and participating in his Forgiveness Project.  It is not an easy process, as it means taking more responsibility for our lives, but the benefit of the peace it can bring seems worth the effort.

Change inherently means loss.  Even when you make a change that’s for the better, it means letting go of old ways, old relationships, and maybe even an older version of yourself.  Recognizing this loss as a process of grieving can help make sense of what you are feeling as you go through changes and help you cope with the array of mixed emotions that usually come along the way.

When a change happens that we didn’t want, it’s easy to understand our sense of loss.  But it can be confusing when we feel irritable or sad when we actually experience a change we’ve desired.  “What’s wrong with me?” you wonder.  Sometimes what you’re missing is obvious (like the cheesecake for dessert), but there’s also the unfolding of more subtle layers of your loss as you experience life in a new way, having given up someone or some previous way of being.  Even with a change you initiate, like moving to a new place or starting a new job, giving up the sense of yourself you had in the old environment can be difficult.  A new hometown or a new job can make us feel we have lost our identity or even our competency as we take on unfamiliar challenges, compared to the life we had mastered previously.  I remember simply finding a doctor when I moved to California being rather stressful.  It was hard not only because so few that were recommended were taking new patients, but it signaled to me that everything I had known and trusted was no longer available to me.

Giving up an old habit can be like losing a friend.  It had always been there for you when you needed it.  Even though you might have wanted to make the change for a long time, such as losing weight, going back to school, or drinking less alcohol, there will be a period of time where you feel that something is missing.  Be good to yourself.  Sadness, irritability, and questioning why you are doing it in the first place are all part of the process.  Recognize these feelings as part of your mourning period and then think about all the good things you will gain by what you are giving up.  It might also be good to give yourself a few extra treats at this time, such as a massage, dinner date, or something else you enjoy.

Don’t be afraid to talk to people about how you feel.  You’ll be surprised at how many people can relate to what you feel in response to your changes.  Just as change is inevitable, so is loss.  Grief comes in waves, but you eventually learn to live with the new reality.  Do what you can to calm the waters of your life, but also build yourself a good boat of support until you can make it to smoother sailing.

Half hearted efforts can undermine our goals. They fool us into thinking that we’ve tried and failed, when really we haven’t given ourselves a true chance for success. For example, when someone really wants to quit smoking, I often hear them promise themselves that “next week I’m going to try not to have any.” Then they look sad as they remember all the times they have “tried not to have any” before. Big life changes require a full commitment that cuts through our ambivalence and offers us maximum support. So I advise them that its time to commit to a Quit Date, when they will move from trying to quit, to actually quitting.

Choosing a date to start a change is an important psychological step. It marks the point when you transition from your old way of doing things to your new way. It helps guide you through the process of change as you select the appropriate date, prepare for it, actually do it, and then support yourself and address the challenges that arise once you make the change. In picking a Change Date, it’s important to strike the right balance of being far enough away that you’ll have time to prepare and feel mostly ready, but not so far away that you’re avoiding action. Some people like to pick a date that has emotional significance. A woman I worked with slected her upcoming birthday as the day to give notice at her job, telling herself that taking the leap to a new career was the best gift she could give herself.

On the actual Change Date it’s a good idea to do something special to mark the occasion. You can engage in some type of a ritual, such as floating some flowers in a body of water or writing a good bye letter to your habit and burning it in a fire pit. If you have a particular religious or spiritual tradition, you can use this to create a ceremony that’s personally meaningful to you. By participating in a ritual, you symbolize your transition and initiate the emotional process of letting go of something old in order to fully commit to something new.

In preparing for your Change Date, it’s important to create a careful plan for yourself. Just as marriage is not merely a wedding, your Change Date marks the transition to a new life that will have the greatest chance of success if you’ve really thought through what it is you want and how you can best support yourself in achieving it. It’s important to enter your commitment in a way that is positive (no shot gun weddings, please) and honors your new partnership with yourself. So if weeks go by when you walk by the scale telling yourself you’re going to try to eat healthier, set the date to actually step on, mark your starting point, and begin tracking your progress with a new eating plan. You might just find joy in a new habit you can count on, to have and to hold from that day forward.